by sejembalm
I had mentioned these streamlined house rules before in other SFB discussions, but this was my set of house rules to make mass fleet battles in the Cadet Rulebook of SFB faster:Use 16-impulse turns.
Turn modes:
- Every ship may make a turn on every impulse it moves. It may make a 60-degree (one hex-side) turn either before or after moving forward one hex.
- If moving at a speed where the cadet turn mode is 2 (Fed, Gorn, Romulan: speed 7+, Kzinti: 8+, Klingon, Orion, Tholian: 9+), then the ship may make a turn only after it moves forward one hex (it turns at the end of its move).
- The ship may make a sideslip instead of making a turn that impulse. No turns may be made with a sideslip.
- Shuttles, drones, and plasma torpedoes may make a 60-degree turn before AND after it moves forward one hex in an impulse.
Full-size ships using the Cadet EAF:
- When playing 16-impulse turns, the speed the ship's 32-impulse movement is halved, dropping fractions [ex: a Fed CA spends 19 energy points to move speed 19, but when playing in a 16-impulse game, it moves at speed 9, dropping the fraction, at the cost of 20 energy points, where an Orion Raider Cruiser with a warp energy cost of 2/3 spends 14 energy points to move at speed 21, will move at speed 10, dropping the fraction].
- If using the above easy turn mode rule, full-size ships will make a 60-degree turn either before or after moving forward one hex.
- If moving at a speed where the turn mode is 3 or higher (Fed, Gorn, Romulan: speed 9+, Kzinti: 10+, Klingon, Tholian: 11+, Orion: 13+), then the ship may make a turn only after it moves forward one hex.
- The ship may make a sideslip instead of making a turn that impulse. No turns may be made with a sideslip.
- Shuttles, drones, and plasma torpedoes may make a 60-degree turn before and after it moves forward one hex in an impulse.
- Spending energy points to activate the shields and life support may be noted in the NOTES section of the cadet EAF.
This form of SFB is simplistic, but it gets the game moving quickly and eliminates that annoying "did I move straight last impulse, or what" and the players will not have to clutter up the map with turn and slip move markers. This also makes the game even easier to explain and play with new gamers which is the whole point of the cadet game. Experienced gamers can also use these house rules to quickly fight out large fleet battles.